Police Reform Project

A pretext stop is when a police officer stops a motorist, cyclist, or even a pedestrian, for a minor offense – like not having a bell on a bicycle or having something hanging from a car’s rear view mirror – when the real reason for the stop is something else. The other reason may be a suspicion without enough of a legal basis that the person stopped has done something wrong, or another reason that would be illegal, like racial profiling. The types of offenses upon which these low-level Vehicle and Traffic Law violations are based do not involve enhancing safety. These stops are often conducted in communities of color and are often directed against young Black men. Multiple studies reflect the racial disparities in who is subjected to pretext stops. For example, from some studies and data cited in our new report, linked below.

Stop the Stops – The Disparate Use and Impact of Police Pretext Stops on Individuals and Communities of Color

• “Our results indicate that police stops and search decisions suffer from persistent racial bias and point to the value of policy interventions to mitigate these disparities.” (A. Emma Pierson et al., A Large-Scale Analysis of Racial Disparities in Police Stops Across the United States, 4 NATURE & HUM. BEHAV. 736, 736 [2020]).
• From a California analysis in 2023: “In 2021, people who were perceived as Black were searched at 2.2 times the rate of people perceived as White. Overall, officers searched 6,622 more people perceived as Black than those perceived as White. In addition, those perceived to be Black adolescents between 15 to 17 years old were searched at nearly six times the rate of those perceived as White youth.” (Press Release, 2021, Racial and Identity Profiling Advisory Board.)
• From a North Carolina study analyzing data through 2016: Blacks were 63 percent more likely to be stopped even though, as a whole, they drive 16 percent less. Taking into account less time on the road, blacks were about 95 percent more likely to be stopped. Blacks were 115 percent more likely than whites to be searched in a traffic stop (5.05 percent for blacks, 2.35 percent for whites). Contraband was more likely to be found in searches of white drivers. (FRANK BAUMGARTNER, DEREK A. EPP, & KELSEY SHOUB, SUSPECT CITIZENS: WHAT 20 MILLION TRAFFIC STOPS TELL US ABOUT POLICING AND RACE 31 [2018]